Mastery Questions

How did political, economic, and religious structures contribute to the development in Europe during the Middle Ages?

How did political, economic, and religious structures contribute to the lack of development in Europe during the Middle Ages?

What events brought cultures into contact with each other and what were the results of those meetings?

The Middle Ages

The Medieval period lasted from the fall of the Roman Empire (about A.D. 500) to the rise of the Renaissance (about A.D. 1500). During this time, Europe was cut off from the world.

Trade declined

Cities and towns declined

Learning declined

Population decreased

War increased

Invaders made life frightening. The Huns, Avars, Vikings, and Germanic tribes destroyed communities across Europe. It was a dark time in the continent.

Kings were not powerful enough to stop frequent invasions on their own. People needed protection, and this led to the rise of feudalism. In feudal society, the king exchanged land to lords and nobles for loyalty. The lords divided their land into fiefs, estates, and gave them to knights to protect their lands. Serfs were tied to the land. Life was very harsh for serfs, most not surviving past the age of 40. They could not leave but had to work the lord's land, pay taxes, and pay fees to the lord of their manor. Manorialism became the economic system of the Middle Ages.

TEKS for Unit 5

4A- explain the development of Christianity as a unifying social and political factor in medieval Europe and the Byzantine Empire

4B- explain the characteristics of Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy

4C- describe the major characteristics of and the factors contributing to the development of the political/social system of feudalism and the economic system of manorialism

4G-explain how the Crusades, the Black Death, the Hundred Years' War, and the Great Schism contributed to the end of medieval Europe

19A- identify the characteristics of monarchies and theocracies as forms of government in early civilizations

20B- identify the impact of political and legal ideas contained in the following documents: Hammurabi's Code, the Jewish Ten Commandments, Justinian's Code of Laws, Magna Carta, the English Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen

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